51. Gathering Up Fragments
Gathering Up Fragments
Chapter 50
There is a law of holy economy in scripture study. Some valuable lessons may not easily be classified; they form a class by themselves. But any impressions of truth or duty, gleaned in the harvest field of the Word, should be carefully gathered up though not sufficient in quantity to be bound in a sheaf. They are handfuls of purpose like Ruth’s gleanings after the reapers. No thought of God can be of little value. The stray hints which He drops in passing are priceless gems, to be preserved as treasures, and worn as jewels.
There are about twelve or thirteen conspicuous symbols used to express the range and scope of the application of Holy Scripture to daily needs. They abundantly repay study from their great suggestiveness and comprehensiveness. Taken alphabetically, they are the following: Bread, fire, gold, hammer, honey, lamp, laver, light, meat, milk, mirror, seed, and sword. Here four symbols refer to food, and food in its nutritious and delicious qualities; four more to the uses of the Word in self-revealing, self-cleansing and self-guiding; four others to its power as a force or weapon, etc.
Throughout the Word most valuable hints are scattered on the philosophy of suffering which in no one place are gathered up and presented at one view, an exception to an otherwise almost uniform rule. If we search we shall find some six or seven forms or phases of suffering distinguished. We may for want of any better terms call them—
1. The Retributive or Judicial (Romans 2:2-11; Romans 6:23).
2. The Administrative, or organic and hereditary (Exodus 20:5-6; Romans 5:12-21).
3. The Punitive or penal (2 Samuel 12:13-19; Hebrews 12:15-17).
4. The Corrective or Paternal (Hebrews 12:5-12).
5. The Educative or disciplinary (Hebrews 2:10; 1 Peter 1:6-7).
6. The Vindicative or exemplary (Job 1-2; Daniel 6; Ephesians 5:10-20).
7. The Redemptive or voluntary and vicarious (Colossians 1:24). The wealth of suggestion found here only deep study can reveal. Retributive suffering is the final judicial infliction of punishment upon the rebellious, impenitent, unbelieving. It may be wholly escaped by repentance, faith and self-surrender, so that the believer will never come into judgment.
What we have called the administrative pertains to God’s method of administering human history. He has established an organic connection between parent and offspring, ancestry and posterity, and a corporate connection between members of the same society, or as we significantly call it “commonwealth,” whereby the sins and follies, as also virtues and excellencies of the sire, are measurably entailed on the son; and if one member of the body politic suffer, all the members suffer with it; or if one be honored, all rejoice with it. To suspend this organic law would not only arrest the evil consequences of others’ wrongdoing, but prevent the blessings which are conveyed in the same channel. Hence our duty is to adjust ourselves to this law by such moderation of our indulgences and virtuousness of habit as both modify the evil consequences of parental sins, and prevent a like inheritance in our children. By the punitive is meant suffering which even forgiveness does not wholly obviate or prayer remove. “God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” David’s sin was put away, but the child born of it could not be spared. Esau’s repentance and remorse could not undo the barter of his birthright, or recall the prophetic blessing that went with it. Nor could even Moses enter the land after his dishonoring of God at Meribah-Kadesh.
Corrective suffering is of the nature of paternal chastisement. It can be got rid of immediately by correcting the fault, for no father continues his chastisement when the child is penitent and obedient. Hence in 1 Corinthians 11:30-32, we are taught that “if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged.” It is our lack of self-correction that makes the Father’s needful.
Suffering may likewise be educative, preparing us for service and maturing in us virtues only ripened in sorrow, like patience which obviously must be learned when there is something to be patient about, to be borne patiently. Even our Lord had to be perfected through such suffering, for the captain of a company prepares for his captaincy by enduring hardship as a good soldier, sharing the training with the members of his company. Gold can only be rid of alloy by furnace fires. It has three stages of history: in the mine, in the fining pot or crucible, and in the vessel: and it gets to be in the vessel and on the master’s table only by passing through the fire.
Vindicative suffering is what we endure in vindication of God, as Job did when the Devil challenged Jehovah to produce a man that served Him without respect to temporal advantage. The Lord needed such a witness in Babylon and Daniel went into the lion’s den to vindicate God by proving that a praying saint will not give up even his prayers or conceal them to save his life.
Redemptive suffering is that which is voluntarily endured to save others. In the nature of the case it must be voluntary in order to be truly vicarious. It is never compulsory, God puts no cross on us; if we bear it at all it is because we take it up after Christ. Paul could not atone for human guilt, nor redeem men, but he could fill up what was behind in the sufferings of Christ by identifying himself with the Redeemer in voluntarily self-denial for His sake and bringing to the knowledge of the lost the fact of salvation. This suffering, so far from being evaded or avoided, should be regarded as the consummate privilege of the believer. The wisdom which finds expression in the book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes is a mine of gems, much neglected. The collection itself challenges the reader to search its contents:
“Have I not written unto thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee”? (Proverbs 22:20-21).
Here is a fine expression of the grand purpose of all Holy Scripture and especially of these words of practical counsel—a gift from God of words of truth, that man might know their certainty, and answer with them all challengers.
We cite a few conspicuous instances:
“The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom,” of “Knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7; Proverbs 9:10). This grand saying is repeated at important points. In Job 28:28, it appears as an oracle, at the close of a sublime poem on the mysteries of nature as the key to their solution. In Psalms 111:10, it comes as the choral close of a temple Hymn, as the keynote of all true worship; and here, it is the watchword of all true education, intellectual wisdom. The Word, Beginning means “principal part,” head and front. It indicates either a starting point, or a goal, or both; what is first in order, or first in importance. The substance of the lesson is, in all pursuit after wisdom or knowledge start with God.
Even in intellectual matters, everything depends on a right point of view. “Inspiration Point” in the Yosemite is so-called because it reveals and interprets the whole valley of wonders. Astronomy was misconceived for thousands of years, because the Earth was conceived as the center of the planetary and stellar universe. The moment that the sun was seen to be the center of the solar system and the Earth conceived as a planet moving round it the confusion of the Ptolomaic gave way to the order of the Copernican. So, if in the pursuit of knowledge you take God as the center, the universe becomes a harmonious system. Atheism is folly, intellectually as well as morally. The only rational interpretation of Nature is to put God on its throne as Creator and Ruler.
“Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
Nothing compares in importance with what is inside: if taken care of, the outside—“mouth,” “eyes,” “feet”—will take care of themselves. “Mores” means both morals and manners. Literally, “above all thy keeping, keep thy heart, for out of it flows Life’s great streams.” As God is the center of all Truth, the heart is the fountain of all virtue. When we cry “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” He replies, “Keep thy heart with all diligence.” These are the two sides of one great matter. Even our intellectual power and success depend upon diligent keeping of the inner life. From the heart flows the blood.
“Watch thy heart above all thy keeping; for from it are the out-flowings of Life.” Man has under his own charge the making and guarding of his own life fountain, and his first duty is to keep it pure.
“There is that scattereth and yet increaseth and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty” (Proverbs 11:24).
Increase comes by imparting, and decrease by withholding. If you want to get, give, and if you want to lose, keep. Even mental riches come by constant spending of intellectual capital. A thought or fact is a seed; to be sown if you want a crop. No man learns so fast as he who teaches. Acquisition comes by impartation. There is gain in grain only as it is sown in the soil. “Sowing in the field is better than sewing in a napkin.” All gifts are for trading. Coin is for currency.
“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Proverbs 13:20).
Goethe says: “Tell me with whom thou art found and I will tell thee who thou art.” Much depends on your companionship. Wisdom and folly are both contagious. Your company suggests your habits and thoughts, directs your aims, refines or degrades your tastes. You will be intellectually and morally assimilated to your chosen companions. Wise men make sages, fools makes fools.
“Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it” (Proverbs 17:16).
Money cannot buy learning, nor take the place of brains; there is no “royal road” to wisdom. The rich have no advantage over the poor. He who has a heart for his work is bound to succeed; nothing is impossible to the man that wills. What is needed is not pre-eminently money nor books, but understanding. There is enough latent brain power in any complete man to make him a scholar. In fact, those who have made most of themselves have generally had least advantages.
“Train up a child in the way he shall go,” etc., literally, “according to his way”—his bent (Proverbs 22:6). The Arabs have a proverb: “You may bathe a dog’s tail in oil and bind it with splints and you can never get the crook out of it.” Every man has a native bent which adapts him to a particular work or sphere. True teaching and training will find out that bent; for, even when he is old, he will be likely to pursue it.
“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search it out” (Proverbs 25:2).
God has a purpose in concealing truth; to stimulate man to search it out. The effort which leads to discovery is more beneficial than the discovery itself. Secrets are left in nature and Providence, in God’s works and Word, to incite study. And it is a royal privilege that a king may covet to explore truth. A great sage said that if he could have his choice to know all that can be known, or forever to seek after more knowledge, he would choose the latter. This proverb embodies a fundamental law. “God” here is Elohim—god of creation. He is verily a god who concealeth Himself (Isaiah 45:15). But it is not to evade but to provoke inquiry and investigation. He hides creative mysteries to stimulate the human mind to exploration, and find the reward of search in discovery. It is God’s glory to hide: man’s glory to seek—even kings, with their high intelligence and large resources, are well employed in searching into what He has concealed. The glory of Elohim is to conceal; the glory of man is to reveal.
The Self Life is another of the subjects which permeate Scripture teaching. Gathering up a few of the fragments we find that the following are the main aspects in which it is presented:
1. Self-righteousness or self-trust; as the great hindrance to the acceptance of God’s saviour and salvation (Romans 10:1-3).
2. Self-dependence or self-help. Even after conversion there is a constant tendency to rely upon our own efforts (Galatians 2:20; Zechariah 4:6; John 15:4-6).
3. Self-seeking (Jeremiah 45:5; 1 Corinthians 10:33). Constant proneness also to seek self-promotion, advancement, emolument (Matthew 16:24-25).
4. Self-pleasing. To set before ourselves our own gratification and indulgence is perilous to spiritual life (Romans 15:1-3).
5. Self-will. The center of all self life is a carnal, selfish will; and hence the need of its absolute renunciation (James 4:13-15; 1 Peter 4:2; John 6:38).
6. Self-defense. We find it hard to abstain from vindicating and justifying ourselves instead of leaving it to God (1 Peter 2:12; 1 Peter 2:15; 1 Peter 2:19-23; 1 Peter 3:16; 1 Peter 4:19).
7. Self-glory. All seeking of human praise detracts from the glory of God and is idolatrous (Daniel 5:23; John 8:50; 1 Corinthians 10:31; Galatians 6:14). Though the forms of self life are legion, all may be included under the above seven heads. On the Times Building in London two books are sculptured in stone. They represent respectively the Past and the Future of human Literature. On one, the Past, ivy is graven to indicate how the writings of past ages are overgrown with antiquity like the ruins of an old cathedral. On the other rests the scythe of Time to indicate how all future writings of men will be severely tested by Time as to whether they can endure, while all that is mortal perishes. On the Bible Society Building in the same street one Book is sculptured—the Book of God, with the sentence: “The Word of the Lord endureth forever.”